The way lay clear before them to Paris, only sixty miles distant. One might think that even Charles VII. might have heard the Brazen Head of the fable speak loud and clear: "_Time is!_" But Charles was listening to the men of Burgundy, and dawdling, which after all was the occupation he loved best. He spent four or five precious days at Soissons, then dawdled across the Marne to Château Thierry, where six hundred years later Yankee boys were to defend gloriously that soil of France which he betrayed and insulted. At Château Thierry he at least did one thing. On the last day of July "in favor and at the request of our beloved Joan the Maid, considering the great, high, notable and profitable service which she has rendered and doth daily render us in the recovery of our kingdom," the king declared the villages of Domrémy and Greux free from taxes forever. Through nearly three hundred years the tax-gatherer's book bore these words, written against the names of these two villages: "_Nothing; for the Maid_." In the reign of Louis XV. this freedom, with many others, came to an end. As Charles loitered about the neighborhood, as contemptible a figure as History can show in all her ample page, the delighted people still flocked from neighboring towns and villages to do homage to him and the Maid. Joan loved these plain country folk with their joyous greetings. "What good devout people these are!" she exclaimed one day, as she rode between Dunois and the archbishop of Rheims. "Never have I seen any people who so greatly rejoiced over the coming of a king so noble. When I come to die, I would well that it might be in these parts." "Joan," said the archbishop, "is it known to you when you will die, and at what place?" Dunois, who rode at her bridle rein, reports her answer. "Where it shall please God! Of the hour and the place I know no more than you. I have done that which my Lord commanded me, to deliver Orleans and have the gentle king crowned. Would that it might please God my Creator to suffer me to depart at this time and lay down my arms, and go to serve my father and mother in keeping their sheep, with my sisters and brothers, who would be right glad to see me." _And all the people shall say Amen!_ Was the good Maid beginning to have glimpses of the clay feet of her idol? If so, she gave no sign. Her loyalty never wavered for an instant, but she was bewildered--how should she not have been?--at the result of her shining deeds. She had laid a kingdom at Charles's feet; he let it lie there, and drifted from place to place, dragging her with him. On August 5th she wrote a pathetic letter to the people of Rheims, doing her poor best to reassure them, who saw their new crowned king apparently deserting them.